Samsung reveals major 5G and AI investment

Tech giant wants to take 20 per cent of the 5G market share by 2020.

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Samsung wants to have at least one fifth of the global 5G market share by 2020. And it's willing to put quite a lot of money where its mouth is, too. According to media reports, Youngky Kim, president and head of Samsung's network business has made the company's intentions very clear, during the recently held at WSJ D.Live in California.

Allegedly, Samsung is going to invest $22 billion in both 5G and AI. This exact technology combination is important, as Kim says 5G is 'oxygen' for AI.

"AI needs a lot of data to respond to you," Kim said. "This amount of data can be provided by 5G, not 4G."

In Q2 of this year, Samsung held 11 per cent of the 4G network equipment share, according to figures from Dell'Oro. At the moment, it provides 5G for AT&T, Sprint and Verizon.

In another interview for the Yonhap News Agency, Kim says the jump from 4G to 5G is much bigger, compared to jumps from 2G to 3G, or 3G to 4G.

"For example, when we choose a restaurant, currently people browse through reviews on smartphones. The AI, however, can instantly read thousands of reviews and recommend customized restaurants and menus by taking users' preference, nutrition and past experience into consideration," Kim said.

Kim also said 5G is important for autonomous cars. With 4G, a car would take 30 metres to react to a dangerous situation and slow down, while with 5G, it would take 30 centimetres.

"In every process from a factory, there is a massive amount of data. The 5G-powered smart factory connects such information together," he added.

"In the era of the 5G network technology, not only will people communicate with each other through smartphones, but smartphones and refrigerators, TVs and vacuum cleaners will talk to each other," Kim said. "Of course, we, who understand devices and consumers' needs, have advantages in terms of experiences and viable capabilities."